I was pondering a lot about your recent post about how difference cultures can mix together.  United States actually presents a great example of how different cultures can blend together, as the country is known as the “melting pot” and most residents are immigrants or descendants of immigrants.  Food from different cultures are not only meshed together, but also families from different cultures really do integrate.

When a family consists of members from different races, it’s known as a biracial family.  New York City’s newly elected Mayor Bill de Blasio’s family is one of many examples.  Mayor Bill de Blasio is white and his wife is black.  They have two children who are mixed race.  Barack Obama’s mother was white while his father was black.  Clarence Thomas, one of the Supreme Court Justices, is married to a white woman.

Believe or not, 50 years ago, interracial marriage was illegal in many states in the United States.  If a white person and a black person married each other, they would be arrested and jailed.  United States unfortunately has a very bad history of discrimination towards people of other ethnic groups.  Interracial marriage became legal in all 50 states in 1967 when the Supreme Court ruled that the law forbidding interracial marriage was unconstitutional. Nowadays, interracial marriage is so common and no longer a taboo.  1 in 12 marriages in the United States are interracial marriages.  I believe the percentage is rising.  Polls are showing that more young people are supporting interracial marriage.  The current number of all interracial marriages is more than double of the number of interracial marriages in 1980.  15 percent of all new marriages in 2010 were interracial.

We can find a spouse who is Japanese while the other is American or a spouse who is Hispanic while the other is German.  When we ask people what is their ethnic background, they will often respond with more than one ethnic group.  One can say, “I am Mexican, British and Native American.”  Another can say, “I am Chinese and Jewish.”  While I am one hundred percent Ashkenazi Jewish and Caucasian, and my ancestry originates from the Pale of Settlement (Poland and Russia), one could consider me “mixed” because my father is Canadian and my mother is American.  Because the number of people who are mixed race has been so high, the government allows people to identify themselves by more than one racial category on the census form.

It is also very common to find many children who are raised with more than one religions as their parents come from different religious backgrounds.  When couples from two different religions marry, it is known as interfaith marriage.  Former President Bill Clinton’s daughter who was raised Christian married a Jewish man.  Tom Cruise, an actor who is Jewish, is married to Katie Holmes, an actress who is Catholic.  While many interfaith couples will integrate more than one religion into their lives, some spouses will convert to the religion of their spouse.

Because I grew up in a very diverse community, I find that it’s very hard to try to date people who share the same ethnic background.  While I have dated Jewish men, I have also dated Indians, Christians and Asians.  Many people from my generation and all the younger generations are “color-blind,” which means that we often don’t think about other people’s ethnic backgrounds when dating other people and forming friendships with people.  I hope the trend of being “color-blind” continues because I believe it creates a better society where fewer discriminations exist and people can be free to express their own identity.

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